Rawlings Appreciates Co-operation With Cuba

ACCRA, Ghana (PANA) - Ghana's president, Jerry Rawlings, has called on Africa to show gratitude for Cuba's contribution to the independence struggle and adopt policies that would make it unnecessary for Cuban professionals to continue serving in the region.

He said Cubans shed their blood for the independence of some African countries, and it continues to dispatch some of its best doctors to serve in some of the most difficult areas in Africa.


"We have to say thank you to Cuba for what it has done in the past and for what it has continued to do," the president told a Cuban delegation Tuesday.


The four-member delegation, led by Ramiro Valdes Menendez, president of Grupo de la Electronica of the informatics and communications ministry, is on a one-week visit to explore opportunities for co-operation with the Ghana communications ministry.


Grupo de la Electronica provides services in electronics, telecommunications, and automation.


Rawlings said the present generation of Cubans needs to stay at home to enjoy the fruits of the revolution sown by their fathers, but they are moving out to put their skills at the disposal of Africa.


Africa has the capacity to enhance its development and what it needs is better terms of trade, which do not allow one partner to cheat the other, he said. "It should be a win-win situation," he added.

Ghana's communications minister, John Mahama, said the delegation has identified four main project areas for collaboration - tele-medicine, manufacture of computers, telecommunications, and value-added services.


Under the tele-medicine programme, it is envisaged that 14 hospitals would be connected to service centres in a major referral hospital in Accra, which will host the database for the project with nodes in each regional capital.


The network will eventually be connected to Cuba and linked to other countries with tele-medicine network.


Menendez said his outfit would like to collaborate with Ghanaian companies, with Ghana eventually serving as a gateway to other West African countries.


Grupo has representation in China, Hong Kong, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Colombia.